"Atheism is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul..." - Chesterton
"We do not really face two rival versions of Christianity. We face Christianity on the one hand and, on the other hand, some other religion that selectively uses Christian words, but is not Christianity." - J. Gresham Machen

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What I believe:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.
I believe he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
I believe he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
I believe he descended to the grave and on the third day he rose again.
I believe he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
I believe he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
I believe we are saved by grace alone through faith alone. I believe the Bible is the word of God, without error or contradiction.
I believe God is sovereign over all the universe; omnipotent and omniscient in all things. I believe that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I believe that pretty much covers it.

Sunday, 30 November 2008

Gentleness and Respect

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect... (1 Peter 3:15)

Our Sunday morning adult class today was on the subject of apologetics, the art of defending the Christian faith to both questioners and attackers alike. The discussion was a lively and informative one, the focus this morning being on Scriptural inerrancy, but the question that occurred to me over the intervening time is this: are gentleness and respect called for in every circumstance?

As I mentioned earlier, one of the areas we are called to defend or explain our faith is when, as in the verse above, we are asked to give the reason for the hope that we have. In other words, when someone seems sincerely interested in our faith and would like us to explain it to them. This we are to do with gentleness and respect. This was also my attitude when I used to have discussions with an employee who was quite a devout Jehovah's Witness. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with her, so I just tried to focus on explaining the differences between our two faiths in the hope that she might begin to see the truth where we Christians believe the Watchtower to be in error.

The other is when the tenets of our faith are under direct attack, either from unbelievers, or those inside the church. Is such gentless and respect called for in all circumstances? Certainly Jesus himself didn't think so in Matthew chapter 23 where he calls the religious leaders hypocrites and a brood of vipers. In fact, not only Jesus, but Paul, Peter and Jude all warn against those who would destroy the faith, and in these cases, it seems to me, they are calling for neither gentleness nor respect.

I believe the difference is between sincere seekers, and those (outside or particularly inside the church) who would see Christianity either destroyed or radically altered. These enemies of our faith deserve neither our gentleness nor our respect.

Someone questioned whether inerrancy in and of itself was that important. Wasn't it enough to believe that Jesus died for our sins? But the leader rightly raised the question of how, if we don't believe the Bible is inerrant, can we be sure about Jesus, his death and resurrection at all. In other words, if we start giving away inerrancy on even seemingly small points, how do we know where to stop?

And again, even though this is in a Baptist church, I see the lesson large and clear in the Anglican church here in Canada.The term, 'slippery slope' can be somewhat of a cliche, but it becomes a cliche only because it is a truism. Once an individual or a church begins to discount certain areas of Scripture, the next is easier to ignore. Soon we see central doctrines like the Virgin birth, the Divinity of Christ and Jesus as the only way to the Father being questioned or abandoned.

And the irony of it all is that churches that adopt these more 'open' views, do so often to appeal to a broader audience, but end up withering gradually away. This gradual dying away is surely the inevitable consequence of these liberal views, but their adherents seem to keep blindly and determinedly plodding down the same broad road, somehow expecting a different result. And as I said this morning, it is indeed heartbreaking to see a denomination one cares for being rent apart by these divisions, but that is exactly where the abandonment of the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture leads.

You have heard the expression that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Someone also told me once that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But some people just never learn!

3 comments:

I have heard it said that one purpose of apologetics is to close the mouth of the mocker. This may entail revealing the foolishness or irrationality of his argument in public. The purpose in so doing is not necessarily to convince the mocker of the truth (he may remain blinded), but rather as a witness to those observing. I believe that apologetics has other purposes as well.

Good thoughts Warren. I used to take part on an atheist discussion board. My real hope there was not to convince the confirmed atheists, but somehow to show anyone "lurking" that the Christian faith is reasonable (hence the title of this blog; I didn't really mean to steal it from William Lane Craig). In fact, on a couple of occasions, people acknowledged to me by private messages that some of my points had given them new insights in various areas. I thank God for that.

The area of inerrancy always raises mixed feelings in my mind. I do believe that the Bible, in its original first copy is the absolute truth and inerrant. However, I struggle with the idea that it has been rewritten so many times by human hands and brains. There are bound to have been typos and other errors, making our copies thousands of years later (from the Old Testament days)errant.

Not to mention the wide variety of translations that we have. Even flipping through an assortment of current Bibles will prove that in some areas there are differences that simply cannot be reconciled--and in these cases they can't all be inerrant.

Now, I would NEVER be so bold as to ever say that one section of God's word is incorrect or to use that as a defense to contradict the Bible. How could I myself, or anyone else ever know where mistakes have been made? You can't.

My belief has always been that God will protect the essentials of his Word and that the truths can be trusted. And always after saying so, admit, as I will do now, that perhaps God has ensured complete accuracy without allowing human error to be an issue. I don't know, just thought I would share the thoughts that always come up in my head surrounding this issue.